Alexi Lalas

After Yesterday's Win, Is Soccer Back? Alexi Lalas Remembers Its Golden Age In America

Editor's Note:Everyone of a certain age knows Alexi Lalas. While younger sports fans may see him as ESPN's lead analyst or the man who brought David Beckham to America (while general manager of LA Galaxy), older soccer hobbyists will fondly recall the ginger-locked defender's legendary career with the United States Men's National Team, in particular the summer of 1994, when soccer was (temporarily) the national sport. Here, Lalas remembers how World Cup fever swept the nation — and he briefly took Ronald McDonald's crown as the world's favorite redhead.

That summer of 1994 changed my life. Without it, I have no doubt that things would’ve turned out very differently. I experienced the power of what a World Cup can do to an individual, and I milked it for all its worth.

For any soccer player, to have a World Cup in your own country and represent your country is obviously special, but there was an added sense of pride — but also pressure — for us. We knew that having a positive tournament could have a dramatic impact on the development on the sport, so we took it very seriously.

Did the nation get behind us? Well look, we put on a show, man. We’re all about entertainment over here, and we do it very, very well — regardless of what it is. We have the infrastructure, the size and, even at that point, we had the audience. All of these things combined make it a no-brainer when it comes to business, but when you’re selling a sport that isn’t No. 1, there’s still an element of risk and unknown.

A lot of the squad, myself included, had never played professionally or been on the books of a club. I did it completely backwards — I had all the international experience and then for the first time after the World Cup went to find a club. So, in order to negate that, we were in residence for two years in Southern California as a team, and we traveled the world playing international games.

Guys would come in and if they worked, they stayed, if they didn’t they’d move on. It was a very unique and interesting environment to be in, but it was essential in terms of developing how we were going to play together and interact as a team in a tournament situation.

I wouldn’t say we were confident going in. In our group we had Colombia, who at the time were one of the favorites — people were picking them to actually win the World Cup — and then two European teams in Switzerland and Romania. We knew we had our work cut out for us and we also knew we’d need a little bit of luck on the day, which we did, so it wasn’t a doom and gloom scenario.

I remember our first game versus Switzerland [in the Pontiac Silverdome]. It was hot. Blazing hot. It had the effect of a hothouse — there was nowhere to go, no air conditioning and it was just so damn hot. The stadium was 10 minutes from where I was born, so it was surreal for me to come back to Michigan and play in a place that I grew up going to — it felt like I had come full circle.

We got a point in that first game [which finished 1-1], so we were happy — it was our introduction to the World Cup and we didn’t want to lose. Amongst all the pressure, the attention and the exhilaration you feel, you quickly realize it’s the game you’ve been playing all along — just with a little more attention.

We were a curiosity to a lot of the country. Yes, they got into it, but Americans will watch when America is involved, that’s who we are — we love to support the flag and the country, and this time it just happened to be soccer. But when we beat Colombia, we started to understand that people weren’t just tuning in, people were proud. For a lot of us, it was the first time we’d had any type of recognition.

I get asked about Andres Escobar more than any other question [the Colombia defender was murdered 10 days after conceding an own goal in a game against USA, which ended 2-1], and I always make sure I preface everything with this: If any of us on the U.S. team thought for an instant that losing that game against Colombia would mean Andres Escobar would still be alive, all of us would gladly do it.